The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Bageya Waiswa, has told Parliament that former Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) Executive Director Allen Kagina did not apply to be redeployed to the ministry after the roads agency was dissolved.
Waiswa made the remarks while appearing before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) during scrutiny of the Auditor General’s report for the 2024/25 financial year.
Committee chairperson Gorreth Namugga, the Mawogola South MP, asked whether Kagina had been absorbed into the ministry following the government’s restructuring of agencies.
“So, was the Executive Director also absorbed by the Ministry?” Namugga asked.
Waiswa replied that Kagina never applied for redeployment. “She did not show interest,” he told the committee.
When Namugga pressed him to explain why Kagina did not apply, Waiswa responded briefly: “She knows herself.”
Namugga expressed dissatisfaction with the explanation and suggested that salary disparities and relatively low pay in the public service could have discouraged some former UNRA officials from seeking positions in the ministry.
The majority of former UNRA staff have been redeployed. However, Ibanda North MP Xavier Kyooma said Kagina’s decision could have been personal.
He noted that Andrew Naimanye, the former Executive Director of the Uganda Road Fund, accepted redeployment after the merger. Officials told the committee that UNRA previously had a staff establishment of 1,380 employees. Of these, 1,254 were absorbed by the Ministry of Works and Transport following the authority’s closure.
Twenty-six employees have not yet been redeployed because they did not express interest in joining the ministry. UNRA closure under the government rationalisation programme
The changes followed the government’s Rationalisation of Agencies and Public Expenditure (RAPEX) programme, which seeks to merge or scrap agencies whose roles overlap with those of ministries. Under the reforms, the UNRA Act was repealed in 2024, and the authority’s functions were transferred directly to the Ministry of Works and Transport.
Kagina, who led UNRA from 2015 until its dissolution, later took up a new public role as chairperson of Uganda’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council, where she oversees reforms aimed at strengthening vocational and skills training in the country.
